Deep Breaths
by natida
Summary: On a mission to learn more about the origins of Voldemort's Horcruxes, Hermione goes back in time to witness the creation of Slytherin's locket. But she never expected to come in contact with its creator: Salazar Slytherin himself.


**Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. This has a tiny canon divergence: Ron and Hermione never got together in Book 7.**

 **Prompt: forbidden love**  
 **(restriction) no using the word 'forbidden'**  
 **(song) 'Thousand Needles' by Lea Michele**  
 **(quote) 'Never, ever allow yourself to feel. Feelings kill.' - Malorie Blackman, _Knife Edge_.**

 **Word count: 2,997**

* * *

When Hermione opened her eyes, it was like awakening from a deep sleep.

She was standing on a floor of polished black stone which shimmered in the torchlight, which came from torches perched on pillars that coiled up from the ground like snakes. Shelves of books and mysterious artifacts, and seats of leather and fur lined the walls on either side. Magic was heavy in the air.

And she felt, strangely, as if she had seen it all before.

"That is impossible," said a deep voice casually, as if they were in the midst of an ongoing conversation. "I built this chamber myself, and know with a certainty that you have never been here."

Hermione turned. A tall man with dark hair stood behind a table, firelight gleaming against his brown skin and beard. His eyes bored into hers, and she scrambled to put back together the mind she had kept open for the portal that had brought her back in time.

"Emotional magic does do that," the wizard continued calmly.

With a wince, she strained to close her mind against his onslaught of Legilimency, before gasping with sudden recognition.

"You're Salazar Slytherin," and she bit the inside of her mouth with effort as she felt his probing thought test her barriers. "Don't," she said through clenched teeth.

"It seems to me painfully ironic," Slytherin said menacingly. "That an intruder should dare resist me when I attempt to read her mind. For this is no simple crime you have committed," and his voice took on a slow, menacing tone. "And if you do know my name, then you also know how grave the consequences will be. Yet you seem surprised to find me here."

"I didn't know I would come _here_. I came following an object. This is a… project, of sorts." She had little hope of withstanding any real assault on his part, and he was likely to guess what she was here for, anyway. Salazar Slytherin was no fool. "I'm from the future," she added bluntly.

He paused, eyes narrowed. He couldn't be much older than thirty; her calculations had proved correct, then—she had hoped to appear in the early 1000s—but she had never expected to come in contact with Slytherin himself.

"And you know me," Slytherin said after a moment. The tightness of his jaw sent a chill down her spine. Did he already have his Basilisk? Because it _was_ the Chamber of Secrets she stood in, and who knew how many secrets it already housed. There was no water, and no statue, but the pillars of carved snakes were unmistakeable.

"I've heard of you," she corrected him, forcing herself to remain calm. Slytherin's face was much younger than that of the man she had seen in paintings, but it was still cunning, and to see it directed at her, _alive_ , made her more than a little uneasy. "I'm tracing the origins of an object, to understand its composition. And if you do anything to my mind, you might unwittingly alter the future."

"Magic remains in our world still, then, it seems. This gives me hope. A thousand years..." He slow smile spread on his lips, and some of the threat faded, overtaken by fascination. "And this object you speak of… it can only be the locket."

Hermione nodded.

"But it is a mere jewel—ah, but your look says otherwise. Fell things come to pass, then, for the sake of this thing?" Slytherin didn't look to her for confirmation. He stalked back towards his table, looking down intently. "So it is that I have caused something evil. Possibly not the first, most surely not the last." His gaze grew dark. "Of what use is this knowledge to you?"

And Hermione didn't know how to answer, because there was too much to explain that _couldn't_ be explained—Voldemort, Horcruxes, Kingsley's post-retirement project to learn how much of a Horcrux's behaviour was dictated by the object it was encased in… and for all their planning, they had never stopped to think that Salazar Slytherin himself might have created the locket. "It's—complicated. I'm studying it."

"A thousand years from now," Slytherin mused, and a strange smile appeared on his face. "Well, I will grant you this, for my own curiosity." His gaze flickered to her hands, lying useless at her sides—emotional magic didn't allow magical objects through. "Strange, to see a witch with no wand. Had I not seen you open the portal before my very eyes, I might have doubted it."

His tone filled Hermione with anger. She was taken back to Second Year, as she rushed through the Hogwarts corridors with a mirror in hand, afraid to look, afraid of _death_. Draco Malfoy's jeering voice and the voice of all the Slytherins around her, shouting _mudblood_ at her twelve-year-old self—

She clenched her hands into fists.

…

The locket would take five days to be completed. Hermione's mind ran quickly through all she had seen of it in her own time: the overwhelming weight and the powerful concentration of power ticking at her chest. And she tried to tie the memory to the inert, naked square that lay empty on the table before them.

"This one will shine beyond the others," Slytherin murmured as he raised his wand, and Hermione was overwhelmed by the power that vibrated through the air at his movement. "If it is to hold such importance, then it cannot be plain."

The gleam of his eyes kindled again vicious resentment, but she swallowed it down as she watched him weave webs of magic around the gold. It was like finding her first wand all over again, feeling the power stream all about her, powerful and uncontainable, surging not only from his wand but from his very _being_. And she suddenly understood how the Founders had been able to create Hogwarts; they were more powerful than anyone she had ever met, even Dumbledore or Voldemort.

This was a man with a will of steel, unbreakable and lasting, which would later feed itself into the locket and seal in Voldemort's Horcrux, nearly killing Harry—stretching out through Hogwarts, awakening the Basilisk, which would hunt children by the scent of their blood. The scars of the wounds he inflicted on the world would remain for ages to come.

Of course the locket had remained intact for so long—it was magic beyond that of ordinary magical artefacts. Salazar Slytherin was powerful, and he was also dangerous.

…

"Does it look the same as you remember it?" Slytherin asked her as he concluded the placing of the emeralds like a coiling snake upon the gold.

Hermione shivered, trying not to think of the painful weight of it around her neck and the even more horrifying heaviness it had placed on her soul as she, Ron and Harry wandered through forests in hiding, the evil presence always ticking and scuttling like a dangerous cockroach. "Yes."

Hogwarts looked much different than how it did in her own time; it seemed smaller and less filled with life. She buried the disturbing difference of everything in newfound books—volumes that no longer existed in her time, probably forgotten or destroyed by some war or another.

"Godric is off on some quest of his own, and Rowena and Helga both are collecting new students for the year," he said, explaining the echoing silence of the castle. "Let us hope this one yields better children than the last."

"You're selective," Hermione bit out before she could stop herself, and she saw Severus Snape in her mind's eye, sneering down at her as if she were nothing; and more ominously, Bellatrix with a knife in hand.

"I take in only the best."

"Only the _purest_ ," Hermione muttered.

He heard her and held her gaze for a moment, but said nothing.

…

On the third night, Slytherin led to the Astronomy Tower. In the distance, she could see small lights glittering—what would later be Hogsmeade, she supposed, though Slytherin didn't recognize the name. Above them the sky stretched out, and the familiar constellations brought Hermione some comfort.

"You despise me," Salazar stated after a while.

"You're an evil man," Hermione replied automatically. Because this would become _her_ Hogwarts, ravaged by war and pain and in the name of Slytherin and his _heir_ … Myrtle, Colin, _Fred_ … the thoughts reached up her throat and choked her. "Everyone knows Salazar Slytherin, the father of blood supremacy—teaching children that not having a magical family makes us dirt under your feet, teaching them to hurt, to _scar_ —" and she reached up her arm and pulled her sleeve up, so that the bright white _Mudblood_ Bellatrix Lestrange had carved into her was exposed in the light.

Salazar frowned. "This is not of my making."

"But it was," she said scathingly. "It was. This word wouldn't still exist in my time if it weren't for you. I've grown up loathed by the students of your House, for being a _mudblood_ , for being _less_ than them. And your heir—" she stopped herself.

His expression was stony, and he turned away.

"You have judged too soon, Hermione from the future. Too soon — and too harshly." He paused, and his hands went to his own arms, as if he was stirred by a sudden memory. "In my time, we are hunted like beasts by Muggle folk. I myself hardly survived childhood, nearly rent to pieces by the King's wizards." Like her, he reached for the sleeves of his robes and pushed them up, so that both his forearms were exposed. And Hermione saw ragged scars reaching up his elbow and continuing into the folds of his clothes, as if slashing knives had nearly torn his arms to shreds. "This was work of those such as you. I was barely six years old. So yes, I revile the children of Muggles in my House, for they grow up to murder their classmates' children. And too many have I lost to a kingdom of petty ambition to waste my efforts educating its slaves. I take the best—and yes, Hermione, the _purest—_ because they are uncontaminated by ideas of riches and _Kings_. Children of magical folk have no interest in Muggle governance, only in the pursuit of power in knowledge."

He sighed. "I do not know what takes place in your time—but while you hate me for what legend claims I have done, I stare at you in wonder: for I did not believe, before I saw you, that magic would survive even two generations after mine. So many have we lost. So scorn me, if you will, for my desire of survival—such is the need of the times. Thank the heavens you will not live them, as I have done."

And he turned on his heel and left her shivering behind him.

…

Salazar whispered Parseltongue into the locket, making the snakes all about the pillars and the walls glitter with fire. The magic seemed to alight and flow through his words into the locket, weaving itself into its being, becoming one with the metal and the gems, curling itself into its hinges and corners.

And she thought of her own time and the way the tales of the war had already been twisted and changed, so that the truth of their sufferings was almost like a secret now, forgotten in the haze of dramatics society preferred. And she wondered at the fact that she had believed Professor Binns' sleepy explanations more than the truth she now lived in.

She wondered how much the Horcrux had done to them, and how much it had left behind.

And as Salazar smiled down at his creation, she recognized what she had thought to be arrogance as admiration; not petty ambition, but fascination towards creation. And she understood what made him the father of a House that would survive for years to come.

"In my time," she murmured, her gaze straying to his hand and the air that vibrated around it. "I never felt this sort of magic. Like yours. It's— _alive_."

"It is the mark of a powerful wizard," Salazar said, and turned his hand over, palm upward, the lines of his hand like a web with power that she was instantly aware of.

"I wonder if we lose it," she said in a low voice. "In time."

"Perhaps. But there is knowledge in your time, I believe, and less fear."

"We've had our share. There's still pain and war."

"There is always pain," he said. "This magic is tangible, and may yet fade. But there is more, which lasts as long as time itself, which rivals it, even."

And he suddenly rose and went to the table. And when he returned, the locket swung lightly in his hands, emeralds glinting in the firelight, and she knew, logically, that it wasn't a Horcrux, but—

But she couldn't refuse Salazar. With trembling fingers, she placed it around her neck.

It wasn't any heavier than an ordinary locket would be, and she wondered if all her memories of it were only a nightmare. Looking up at him, she saw gentleness in his eyes, and tried to find words for the strange conflict that was slowly churning inside her—because he was _Salazar Slytherin_ , and she was a _mudblood_ from the future, and she didn't know how much of the legend would prove true, or if she had ever been wrong at all.

"I'm sorry," she breathed.

Salazar smiled. "It looks beautiful on you," he said.

…

"Is it done?" she asked when she awoke on the last day. The eyes of the snakes on the walls gleamed with shivering light.

"This is the last potion," he replied. And then he dropped the locket onto the table. "It can wait."

Hermione straightened in her seat, brushing hair out of her face as sleep left her completely. "No, it can't. You said it yourself—this magic is very precise."

"So is emotional magic," Salazar said. "The very second the locket is completed, the portal will open, and you will be gone from this time and place. That is one hour from now."

Hermione swallowed, feeling her mouth dry. And she wondered, suddenly, what might happen if Salazar never finished creating the locket; if the portal never opened and never took her through, if she never returned to her position in the Ministry and the strenuous demands of her life. She could remain in this Hogwarts for the rest of her life, pursuing knowledge alongside Salazar Slytherin, furthering the line of magical proficiency, furthering—

She shook her head.

"Do it, Salazar," she said quietly. "We don't know what could happen if you don't."

"But we do."

Their gaze tightened and held, and she knew her emotions were drawn clearly on her face. He seemed to waver where he stood, fingers twitching in her direction as if he longed to move towards where she sat by the fire, but he held still.

It would be too great a risk, and too much of a paradox. And Hermione didn't belong in that time, that time full of strife and fear—she had already lived it in the future.

"Finish it," she said in little more than a whisper, and Salazar lifted his wand and levitated the locket into the potion. It bubbled, and was still.

Hermione stood up suddenly and moved to his side. He met her eyes with a softness that she didn't expect, and without thinking, she seized his hand and rose up to meet his lips with hers.

The kiss was like nothing Hermione had ever experienced. His hand under hers sent crackling electricity through her bones, his mouth soft yet firm as he held her and kissed her back. The scars she discovered at his neck where thin white ridges that she tasted, and he tangled his fingers through her hair as he braced her against a pillar, the soft torchlight setting his skin on fire.

Finally, Salazar drew away, his mouth at her temple, breath escaping him in short, hot gusts. Hermione buried her face in his exposed chest, inhaling the scent of him, hearing the pattern of his heartbeat mimic hers. The potion behind them was bubbling again, and a slow mist rose from the surface.

"Well, Hermione from the future," he said, a finger on her pulse. "You must prepare. You must never allow yourself to feel, in the portal." In emotional magic, feelings could kill.

It was ironic, she thought as Salazar broke away from her, hands uncurling from her hair, and she breathed in slowly like she had in the Department of Mysteries what felt like an age ago. She thought of Kingsley, and Harry and Ron—how could she possibly explain that she had loved Salazar Slytherin, however briefly?

"I'll tell them the truth about you. In my time."

He smiled wryly, fingers clenching around the edge of the table. She wondered if he was trying to stop himself from approaching her again. "What truth? You will not know. Perhaps I do become the devil your legends describe. Perhaps not. I do not care. For me it is enough to know that there is yet hope for magic in this world, if it be a thousand years hence. And," he added softly. "To have born love for Hermione has been an honor worth a lifetime."

Salazar reached forwards and took her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. The potion released a large cloud into the chamber, and he reached backwards for his wand, and Hermione closed her eyes tightly, forgetting the heat of his hand and the fire of his gaze and focusing only on the neutral whiteness of her mind, memory fading as she forced herself to forget, lest her emotions keep her trapped in the void forever…

The roaring storm of the portal opened within her, pulling her forwards, and there was nothing but silence and the last buzz of magic on her fingertips.


End file.
